Califone

Califone songwriter Tim Rutili has lived in Chicago all of his life. Well, except right now. After finishing an exhausting tour for 2004's Heron King Blues, his band's most adventurous album to that point, Rutili left his native city-- where he formed Friends of Betty, Red Red Meat, and Califone-- for the easier climes of Los Angeles.

"It was nice not to have a winter this year," laughs Rutili, driving to his sister's house in Chicago after a weekend of gigs. "Los Angeles was a nice change."

Tonight, Rutili is back in Chicago, but he's not here permanently: It's Monday, and he leaves Thursday for a Califone show in New York, and then he goes back home to California until the band gathers to rehearse for its tour behind Roots and Crowns, the ultimate intersection of the band's dual knacks for sonic texture and exquisite songcraft.

Yet it's an album that almost never happened. Coming off of the Heron King tour felt like death, Rutili says. He wasn't sure if he wanted to be in a band again.

But, while digging through boxes of trinkets and records as he settled into California, he discovered a mix CD with "The Orchids", the opening cut from Psychic TV's 1983 album Dreams Less Sweet. In that song, he found several things: a new hope, a new desire to write songs again, and a new desire to be in Califone. The band-- Ben Massarella, Jim Becker, and Joe Adamik-- was ready to go to work, as were producers Michael Krassner and Brian Deck, the two people Rutili says he trusts in the studio more than himself.

Tonight, behind the wheel, Rutili is open about the long process that led to the album-- the personal troubles he had, the samples he found, and the melodies they inspired.

Pitchfork: "The Orchids" is a pretty obscure cut from Psychic TV. How did you hear it first?

TR: My first exposure to Psychic TV was when I was a kid in the 1980s, and I saw them play. They were playing in a warehouse, and all I can remember was smoke and an incredibly loud noise, and I think they threw firecrackers at us. So I was pretty impressed with that and into that at the time, and it was pretty important to me. And I remember hearing the record, and I just thought it was weird.

Then a couple of years ago, Mike McGonigal, who does that magazine Yeti and is a friend of mine, was coming through Chicago and he gave me some mix CDs he made. They were pretty amazing. And that song was on one of those CDs, and, when I moved, I was unpacking boxes and I saw these mix CDs and I was like, "What the hell is that?" So I put it on and that song knocked me over. It's just beautiful.

Pitchfork: The lyrics in that song are stunning. Is that what brought you to it?

TR: They're unbelievable, and just from the Psychic TV stuff I've heard, Genesis P-Orridge seems to come from a very spiritual space and that's what that song is all about. The first thing I noticed was the way I was reacting to it, like the way I reacted the first time I really got into a Velvet Underground song. I was like, "This is almost as good as a Velvet Underground song," and nobody's that good. I was pretty amazed by that, and I needed to listen to it every day. I was going through a period where I was just trying not to write songs and was thinking maybe I wouldn't play in a band and make records anymore. That song made me really, really want to write songs again.

Pitchfork: How long did you need to hear that song every day?

TR: Well, I don't know how long for every day, but I would listen to it a lot and play it for everyone that I was coming into contact with. I was working with Michael Krassner on a bunch of stuff, and I remember playing it for him and saying, "Holy shit, we have to try and do something like this." So it went on for two or three months where I was like that. I was like that with The Jungle Book album when I was a little kid, too. I remember having that record, and I drew on the cover with crayons and I had to listen to that soundtrack every day.

Pitchfork: You said you weren't sure if you wanted to be in a band again before hearing "The Orchids." Was that a reason for leaving Chicago?

TR: No, there were a lot of reasons. I have family stuff going on, and it was work stuff, too. I really did need a change because I had been living in Chicago my whole life, and I really needed to live somewhere else. I mean, the jury's still out. I don't know if we're going to stay out there or what. I'm still trying to get used to it. Los Angeles is a huge city.

Pitchfork: It seems like it would provide some needed anonymity.

TR: I've been really enjoying that, yeah, but the other side of it is, when I come back to Chicago, everywhere I go I see someone I know. That's been really good, but I think if I were living here seeing someone I know everywhere I go would be kind of a drag.

Pitchfork: Did "The Orchids" affect any of your music, like The Lost, the horror film you scored?

TR: The director needed a song for the end credits, and that song was an early version of "3-Legged Animals". I think it was called "Dreamless" on that, and there's a little kind of fake marimba on there that's a little tribute to "The Orchids". That's the only thing it leaked into, and I was just begging for an excuse to rip off some part of that song.

Pitchfork: At that point, did you think "The Orchids" would be something you wanted to expound upon for a whole record with the band?

TR: No, I just knew it made me want to write. I didn't know if it was going to be based on the song, and, at the time that I started writing songs for this record, I didn't know we were going to cover "The Orchids". Recording it came as an afterthought. We were ahead of schedule, and I said let's just try this, and we just did it. I think it was maybe the first or second take from the second block of recording we did. And then I though it would just be this little iTunes or extra track for Japan. I didn't know it was going to go on the record.

Pitchfork: It's interesting, though. It's treated as a centerpiece, with segues in and out. Track order seems paramount on the album. It flows really well. Was that a big decision for the band?

TR: Actually, the way it happened was we had all written out our own little order for the songs, and I was at the studio and we were wrapping up for the day. I was talking to my girlfriend on the phone, and she had a stack of tarot cards, and she said, "How many songs are on the record?" I said, "I think about 15 songs." She threw 15 cards, and, in order, I wrote down the cards. Ben and I sat down, and that's how we finally agreed on it. It was based on the cards that she drew, and it just kind of worked out. It was half faith and half, uhh, "OK, if this doesn't work, forget about it." Doing something because of tarot cards is no reason, but it seemed to work.

Pitchfork: Do you base most of your life on thrown cards?

TR: [Laughs] Do I believe in the devil? The answer is "YES!"

Pitchfork: Several of the songs on Roots and Crowns kind of run with at least a spiritual imagery. Like "3-Legged Animals": "3-Legged Animals/ Shut their sweet eyes/ Lick your scars and grow wings."

TR: I started out writing that song for the end credits of The Lost, so I spent weeks putting music to gory, bloody violence, so when a director asked me for an end-credit song, I just imagined these people having a really nice afterlife. Because, in life, these people seemed like such incredible monsters and beasts and assholes and fucking liars, so, I thought, "Shit, man, hopefully we're going to get a little bit of relief." The way the movie ends is just one of bloodiest things I've ever seen in a movie, and it goes to black and there's the sound of wind and then that song pops up. So, I thought it was appropriate to have a little bit of redemption for people that don't fit.

Pitchfork: In an interview a few years ago, you said, "I just try to exaggerate fuzzy memories mostly." Is that still true?

TR: No, I think I was using a lot of those older songs to clean out those memories, and then I ran out of memories, so now I have to do something else. It's a lot of me just trying to write without thinking and without trying to manipulate a song into having meaning. I think meaning is something that's really unnecessary in music, at least for me.

Pitchfork: Do meanings emerge from the songs when they're done, though?

TR: Yeah, all sorts of abstract characters pop out of these songs for me, personally. It's not like, "Oh, that's about that old girlfriend" or "That's about the bad marriage" or whatever. It's more like they become little characters. It sounds like a weird, ritualistic thing, but they do after a while just become little people with little quirks. Some of them you want to know, and some of them you just don't.

Pitchfork: These seem like you would want to know them. They seem really hopeful. Do you see that?

TR: In a way I do. In a way, it's that last period after we toured for Heron King and then stopped for a while. It was like dying, so we had to really decide to do this again. There's no way any of us is going to do this just because we feel like we're forced to. We're doing this because we want to. It was a conscious decision to try this again and, when it felt good, to make a record. It was kind of like dying and then deciding to live again.

Pitchfork: Those sentiments filter into the album, lyrically: Like, from "The Orchids", "In the morning after the night/ I fall in love with the light."

TR: Yeah, definitely. And I think that a lot of it was also about trying to do this again without looking back or basing it on the past. It definitely worked its way into the lyrics, but it wasn't a conscious move to make this the subject matter. I don't know, I would like it if people made their own decisions about what it was about.

Pitchfork: Is that what you do with music you love?

TR: Yeah, I really do. It seems like that's what most people do. A lot of that stuff is attached to times in my life, that doesn't remind me of ten years ago. That's right now. And that's a good thing. Except with Journey. Hearing Journey reminds me of getting punched in the face with braces on my teeth. I was a freshman in high school, and I was in a Catholic school. That weekend, there was a Journey concert, which a lot of the kids went to and they put their concert shirts over their school uniforms, which I thought was ridiculous. So I made some cracks about it, someone took it the wrong way, and I got smacked in the face. Everytime I hear Journey, my teeth hurt, and I taste blood.

Pitchfork: On Roots and Crowns, it's hard to pick out many individual parts, and you guys seem to be working as a band of collaborators. How do you see that relationship, even with Brian Deck?

TR: It seems like it's not down to roles anymore. Where Jim is the guitar player and I'm the guitar player and the singer and Joe is the drummer and Ben is the drummer, it seems like whatever anyone can do, they do. Ben is pretty much the drummer, and he doesn't play any other instruments, but it's not weird for him to say, "Oh, I gotta bass part," or "Let's try this on a piano." Joe plays everything. He's a better musician than me. He can pick up a guitar and play it better than me, so if he has an idea for a guitar part, fine. But usually with him, he'll have an idea to put chunks of metal on a really loose kick drum and play a melody on that. And Jim will always do something surprising.

And Brian, with the electronic work he did, brought another whole level to it. Some of this stuff was recorded at my house or at Jim's house, and we did it on the fly. And Brian would take these home recordings, and we'd say, "OK, go to town." He would just process the shit out of 'em, and cut and cut and cut. And it worked.

Pitchfork: Was it difficult thinking about playing these songs as a band, live, when you were writing and recording them?

TR: On the record, we didn't think about playing them live at all. We just tried to make something that would be a good listen. Now, in trying to play them live, we just have to put aside the recording and forget about what we did and see how we can work with what we have. I know I don't want to do too much computer stuff or have this be too much like a karaoke show. So a lot of the ideas are implied in the live thing. That's how we always approached it.

Pitchfork: You did the In the Reins tour with Calexico and Iron & Wine before finishing this album. Did that make you want to be in a band still?

TR: Definitely. It was really inspiring. The thing about that tour was that there were a lot of people involved, and there was absolutely no bullshit. It was about playing good music and having a good time. Calexico and Iron & Wine are all just amazing musicians. There would be times when I was playing a song, and I would hear a noise and I would turn around, and Joey or John would be playing on my set. Or, during their set, they'd wave for me to come and play with them. I guess they did that in every town, just pulling from the area.

Pitchfork: This record relies on field recordings and samples at points, and they sometimes feel like the roughed-in root of the melody. Where did that idea come from?

TR: I would drive through the desert, and there's this one spot in the desert that, every time I drove through it, I would get crazy ideas. I would either sing into the cell phone recorder or I would sing into a DAT machine. So, I had this DAT machine, and I was hanging out with my son and was recording stuff all the time. I think the samples that made it onto the record came from an arcade and like a golf driving range.

Pitchfork: How do those samples go from being just field recordings to, in some cases, mirrors of the melody?

TR: Well, the ones that made it onto the record that are standing alone were added as an afterthought. Actually, there is this book my friend Zach gave me called The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos, and it's right before World War I, and it's part of a U.S.A. trilogy. The way the book is structured, the first part of each chapter is cut up things from newspapers around that time, and the second part of each chapter is kind of a blurry memory written with no capital letters, no punctuation. The third part of each chapter is just these beautiful stories that follow one particular character and what they were going through right before, when the country was about to go through World War I.

I just imagined that it would be great to put a record together that way. So, I figured a lot of that sound collage and sample stuff would be newspaper clippings. The book is really structured but the way it appears, it feels really random and natural, like a beautiful collage.

Pitchfork: So the melody is the third part of each chapter?

TR: Yeah, definitely.

Pitchfork: And the samples are the first?

TR: Yeah, it's called a "camera eye" in the book. It's beautifully poetic, the way the newspaper clippings just fall together in the book.

Pitchfork: What about the memory?

TR: That's almost the lyrics, for me.

Pitchfork: "3-Legged Animals" ends on major piano chords, and it's like resolution. But the next song, the last one, "If You Would" is kind of the opposite. Why?

TR: Yeah, that's the point of it, to open it back up. It's a good ender, to almost leave it with not necessarily a question mark but not necessarily a period.